Trotter on Little’s credibility

Not that Mr Little was without a strategy on Tuesday morning. His proposed way of dealing with the TPPA was to see it ratified; to assist the National Government in bringing New Zealand’s laws into conformity with its provisions; and then, upon becoming the Government, simply “flout” those TPPA rules which conflict with his government’s plans.

As a gift to Labour’s political opponents, this strategy is hard to beat. No responsible political party loudly announces to the world that, if it wins office, no other nation should place the slightest trust in their country’s solemnly given word. Such behaviour would turn this country into an international pariah.

Yep.It may be the stupidest thing he has said.

Not that it’s likely to happen. From now until the 2017 election, National will use Mr Little’s words to shred Labour’s political credibility. Not only that, but Little’s decision to “flout” will also allow Mr Key to present New Zealand’s adherence to the TPPA as a matter of national honour. Labour will be made to look like an untrustworthy bunch of thieves and liars.

In the House on Wednesday, Labour had only one question on TPP, and National had three. This shows that National thinks Labour is in deep trouble over what Little has said.

Related Stories

Comments (30)

davidp

>In the House on Wednesday, Labour had only one question on TPP, and National had three.

Hang on… I thought that the whole flag referendum was intended to distract people so that they couldn’t hear anything about TPP. Did three National MPs not receive the memo from the Great Right Wing Conspiracy?

Prince

Dave Mann

I’m still a bit doubtful about whether the TPPA will ultimately be good for NZ (I’ve said so in other threads)…. but I think Chris Trotter is 100% correct in his assessment here.

As NZ will be signing up to this thing for decades ahead, I think that our agreement to join should be by cross-party consensus and the government should brief Labour thoroughly so that they don’t flout the agreement in the (unlikely) event that they are in government.

Its OK for Labour to say that they ‘might’ try to re-negotiate on some areas in the future… but to signal in advance that they are totally untrustworthy is sheer stupidity and potentially harmful to our national image.

Manolo

billmurray

Little and Labour now want to flout the TPPA if they get elected, Has Little gone stark raving mad or has he always been so ?. Flout, breach, renege are all signs of a desperate and destitute political leader and party. Andrew Little and the rest of the numpties should all resign and disappear from sight of the good people of New Zealand. They are shameful and disgraceful.

BeaB

Watching their dejected slouches in Parliament, their half-hearted bellowing, the ease with which the Government ministers bat them aside, you have to wonder whether only a complete clean-out will rescue Labour. What a dismal lot.
The Greens are not much better with their manufactured emotion and undergraduate dramatics.
And where is Winston? Time he came back as his awful crowd of incompetents bumbling pompously, trying to look clever when they clearly are not, make his party look like a joke. And Ron Mark the chief clown.

Nigel Kearney @3:27 pm.
Little is not saying Labour would withdraw from TPP, like I guess you are saying National should from UN climate change treaties. He is saying, we’ll stay in and insist on all the tariff cuts but will deliberately flout bits he doesn’t like. This is unprecedented irresponsibility by a pretender to the prime ministership.

Random T Person

davidp

Labour really aren’t big-picture people. There really is only one issue here, which is do we want the rest of the Pacific to trade among themselves while we sit on the sidelines on our own? It’d be like a very young child who got pissed that none of the other children at school wanted to play their game, and so sat sulking in the corner alone while everyone else got on and had fun together.

Labour wants to throw NZ under the Pacific bus. Is there nothing that he wouldn’t ruin and destroy if it meant that the unions got to run what was left of the country?

Captain Mainwaring

Angry Andy has plumbed new depths of incompetence. And now his private Member’s bill has been rejected because it’s almost the same as a previous one. How bad can things get for this bunch of bumbling idiots?

cubit

Colville

There are a few reasons why Little won’t get tipped over for a while ..
The leadership talent pool is only a shallow puddle.
Andy is the Unions favourite stooge
Robertson is an inept coward
The party message is past its use by date and pretty much unelectable.

Unity

Little has shown what an idiot he is and how it would be disastrous to let him have the reins. The sooner he’s gone the better – but who would replace him? I can’t see anyone at the moment. Helen did a great job of getting rid of any possible contenders and they still haven’t re-stocked since her departure, although Kelvin Davis is a possibility in the future, but not yet.

thedavincimode

It isn’t just little angry.

The teletubbie has enjoyed a week of dealing himself serial face plants over the budget surplus and TPP. The fact that as finance spokesperson, he still doesn’t understand a set of accounts or how the budget allocation process works shows that he is: a) terminally stupid or b) terminally lazy or c) both. I’m going for (c). Just a fucking idiot.

Add Full Moon into the equation with her TPP questions and it’s been a week where one could be forgiven for thinking that liebour has made a deliberate decision to prove just how ignorant, lazy and stupid they really are. We are normally treated to at least one of them popping up into the limelight in a blaze of stupidity, but this week they’ve hit the trifecta. A piss poor week of weapons grade idiocy for the chardonnay socialists. Fantastic.

burt

Dear Mr Trotter

Labour will be made to look like an untrustworthy bunch of thieves and liars.

Many of us have been telling you this for years, it’s good you can finally see it. Now consider that Labour haven’t built a sustainable economy for over 60 years and have a wee quiet reflection about that too.

Gabby

Inthisdress

The first time Little featured on my radar when was when he proposed publishing a ‘name and shame’ list of small business owners who refused to employ people on stat days rater than pay the 15% surcharge. because business owners are evil or something…

This to my mind was the apotheosis of his smallness of mind, his political ambition and his ability to make meaningful impacts: – and nothing he has done since has given me cause to review that .